


Incognito

by Trychtopus



Category: Midnight Poppy Land (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23935228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trychtopus/pseuds/Trychtopus
Summary: While coming to terms with his developing feelings for Poppy, Tora takes advantage of Ronzo's ingenuity and comes to her aid from afar.
Relationships: Poppy/Tora
Comments: 17
Kudos: 177





	Incognito

Sunlight filtered gently in through the cheap curtains that framed the window above him, muted by the fine layer of dust and grime that coated the old glass. He watched idly as little whorls of dust and smoke danced languidly in the air, curls of gray twisting and turning upward from the cigarette that dangled precariously from his fingertips over the ashtray. He flicked it with his thumb, caring little to actually ensure that the ash made it into its receptacle, then took a long drag. The smoke burned in his chest for a moment before he exhaled it through his nose, irritated with himself.

Life had been so simple such a short time ago, he mused. Happy? He snorted and stubbed his cigarette out. He couldn’t remember a time where he’d  _ ever  _ have described himself as happy, but simple, yes. He woke up, he got his assignment, he went to work, he came home, he slept. Sometimes he got hurt, sometimes he got laid, more often than not he spent the brunt of his time grinding his teeth and chain smoking, but it had been simple. Clear cut. No bullshit.

He could feel the vein in his forehead throbbing its typical warning, his own fucked up hint that a headache would shortly follow. Lately, life had become decidedly  _ less  _ simple. Usually when his life became less simple, it was because of Goliath, and the thought of it nearly forced him to roll his eyes. His memory expertly supplied the stilted texts he’d received from the other man not long ago, pleading for his help, offering nothing but a location and a threat. Now Goliath was missing and he had a brand new, equally as maddening presence in his life. 

When life had been simpler, it had been easy for him to file everyone neatly away. The structure of the family had always suited him well, even independently of the crime aspect; everyone had a place and a job to do. Tora knew his place and he knew his job very well, and he knew how to keep everyone else from affecting either of those in a way that interrupted the natural order of things. Now, however, there was a new contender, and she didn’t  _ have  _ a place or a job to do. She was simply there, unwaveringly present in his life, and he had no idea what to do with that.

He lit another cigarette.

She was such a soft and messy thing, with her wild chestnut hair and eyes like soil after a summer rainfall. Her heart was right there on her sleeve and she was everything he wasn’t, always optimistic, always concerned, and despite the fact that he could read her like a book, he couldn’t help but feel like he didn’t know her very well at all. As he sucked in another deep drag from his cigarette, he closed his eyes and was hardly shocked to find her image dancing at the forefront of his mind as it always was these days. He released a smoky sigh.

Women were no mystery to him, at least insofar as they’d served his needs. Even from a young age they had practically thrown themselves at him, some more subtle than others, but all seeking the same end. He never liked any of them, couldn’t even  _ remember  _ most of them, his memories blending them all together in a blurred, vacant combination of crop tops and glossy lips. None of them ever seemed to have any  _ substance  _ to them, he mused, only after him for his money or his body or his status. He snorted. Would they still feel that way about him, he wondered, if they found out he was just a deadbeat bodyguard? Would they still stick around through the night terrors or the hours he spent shivering and staring at the door? Would they see the blood on his hands and still beg him to run them along their bodies?

This one was different, though. 

His instincts drove him to follow her, or at least that’s what he still tried to believe. Tora wasn’t a man that believed in coincidences, and to have her crawl out of the same hole Goliath had named may as well have been a neon-lit sign as far as he was concerned. The more he bumped into her, however, the more he struggled to connect the dots, and that in and of itself was becoming a pain in his ass. The girl was clean, almost annoyingly so--the dossier he’d received on her confirmed what she’d advertised plain as day. College graduate, good grades, nice family out in the country. The biggest stain on her record was a parking ticket she’d gotten when she’d left her scooter in a fire lane her first year of college...and she’d paid it. From her own account.

A long trail of ash tumbled from the end of his cigarette which had gone out several minutes ago, forgotten.

She had to have Goliath’s notebook; it was impossible for her to have left the same area without it, but what did it mean? It wouldn’t necessarily be the  _ first  _ time an unlikely candidate got tangled up in the wrong crowd, but the way she looked at him time and time again… He just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something bigger going on here. 

His thoughts paused precariously on the edge of something vastly more sinister, tipping gently back toward something he’d found himself returning to over and over again lately: 

_ The way she looked at him. _

A quiet, rare smile curled his lips for just a fleeting moment. She was terrified of him, of course, everybody was, but she pushed  _ past  _ that and vaulted herself directly into his way each time, like a kitten squaring up against a stray dog. He could see the obvious trepidation in her gaze every time she looked at him, but she looked him straight in the eye, which was a great deal more than most seasoned criminals had ever had the guts to do. She was brave, stupidly so, and he couldn’t help but find it as endearing as it was concerning. The constant fear and avoidance that he experienced had all become so routine to him now he’d actually forgotten how much fun it could be to tease, and despite the job he still had yet to complete, he would at least admit, even if only to himself, that he actually found himself looking forward to seeing her again.

Poppylan Wilkes. He snorted lightly, dismissing the ridiculous name. Complicated. Just like everything else about her, it was more than it should have been. Sometimes when he closed his eyes at night he could still feel the way her fingertips had brushed against his temple when she'd foregone every single reasonable cultural boundary to tuck his hair behind his ear for him. They'd been so soft, so gentle and a little cold and unlike anything he'd ever felt before. She'd lingered, too, and he secretly clung to the way she'd brushed his skin without motive and without pain--just her trademark carelessness and worry, just for him.

Had he not been who he was he might have missed the soft look in her eyes when he'd glanced up at her, still cradled against the backs of her fingers. She had only a scant half second before she'd realized what she had done and the tenderness had quickly been crushed by panic, but he'd seen it. That girl had looked at him like he was simply a man and nothing else, not a lethal weapon forged his entire life for war, not a monster. 

His chest constricted for a moment, tight with the weight of it all. What a fucking mess.

His schedule had been light today, leaving him with plenty of time to come up with yet another attempt to clean up Goliath’s mess. He supposed it was a rare stroke of luck that he'd ended up with the assignment at all; had Balthuman assigned some other sloppy goon to go after it, Tora was uncomfortably familiar with what fate would have eventually befallen the girl. It was a wonder he even cared what happened to some naive hick from the woods, but just the same, he swung his feet over the edge of the couch at long last and twisted, savoring the sharp series of pops that brought relief to his aching back.

Twenty-six years old, and already he had the body of an old man. He shook his head, disgusted with himself.

He stretched, then, feeling unusually restless as he reached up to tame the black mop on his head. The elastic he used was nearly as tired as his body was, comically stretched from living nightly around his wrist. Truth be told it was becoming a huge pain in his ass at this point, but he just never seemed to find the energy to bother going to actually get it cut. He scratched harshly at his chest and stood, distantly growing more and more irritated with how obvious it had become as of late that his life was a boring shit show when he wasn’t babysitting somebody else. He stomped to the bathroom to take a leak, then paused after washing his hands to splash some water on his face while he was at it.

The man that stared back at him from the mirror was hardly anyone he cared to recognize. Objectively, he supposed he understood that he was attractive; it was impossible not to know it when he could scarcely walk down the road for takeout without somebody trying to break his dick off. Even so, he was far too intimately acquainted with each scar, each long-healed broken bone or crowned tooth or split lip to see anything other than a spectre of his past self. Was this what Poppy saw? A broken, hollow vessel of violence? A man without direction if he wasn't brutalizing someone? Intimidating them? Stalking them for their deepest, most sinister secrets and then wringing them from their flesh?

How long would it be before the light in her eyes dimmed as she gazed upon him, a moth too close to the flame?

Shaking his head, he snarled quietly, turning away from himself and favoring the anger he felt over the shame he could never quite smother all the way. At the end of the day, it didn't fucking  _ matter _ what her opinion of him was because all  _ she _ was to him was a  _ job  _ that he needed to get off his  _ ass _ and actually  _ do. _

Just as soon as he checked on her, anyway.

He snagged a bottle of juice from the box on the kitchen floor and chugged it on his way back to the couch. He had to admit, Ronzo had really outdone himself on this one. Tora had already posted his men nearby, of course, having briefed them as little as possible as to why he wanted this  _ one particular girl  _ surrounded by such protection, but a remote camera was brilliance incarnate. The rookie clan member had even gone so far as to set up a connected app on his phone so that he could access the live feed whenever he so chose, adding notifications regarding any movement on her balcony on top of it. It was almost enough to make up for his constant emotional nagging, but Tora knew he’d be broken in like the rest of them soon enough. 

Settling back in on the couch, he tapped the camera app and peered at the image it produced, grainy in the low light of the evening but still high enough quality for him to mobilize if need be. Her balcony was vacant, save for the various potted plants and a lounger in the corner. If he squinted, he could see some animation inside her apartment, backlit shadows dancing against the shaded sliding door that separated the residence from the outdoor area. He could feel the tension at the back of his skull begin to clench once more at the notion that somebody was there with her, some stranger or worse, an intruder, and so he navigated the functions until he could remember how to zoom and felt his pockets for his car keys while he watched.

There wasn’t much to discern about the other occupant; short cropped hair and a thicker build than hers, likely male from the lack of curves but teasingly vague as whoever it was maintained a side profile. They were arguing. He ground his teeth as he watched, a pathetic attempt at stifling the frighteningly protective flutter in his chest that sat like oil on water atop the savage instincts roaring within him. His thumb twitched, ready to send a preparatory text to one of the henchmen he’d placed near her apartment when the shadows suddenly shifted. His eyes narrowed to vicious slits as the mystery person attempted to embrace the one he knew to be Poppy, then widened significantly when she apparently shoved them backward and pointed firmly at the apartment door.

It wasn’t until the shadow vanished further in and Poppy’s outline moved through the motions of hoisting one of her many books and lobbing it after them that he finally released the breath he’d been holding, chuckling at her enthusiasm.  _ That’s my girl. _

Tora flinched.

His pack of cigarettes were blessedly close by when he fumbled for them, shaken momentarily by the intrusive affection to which he’d just been subjected. He set his phone down on the couch next to him as he lit one and took a deep drag, pawing at his forehead to soothe away the mounting headache there.  _ The fuck was that? _ He exhaled and clenched his jaw, annoyed.  _ What did you expect, you fuckin’ trainwreck? To be her knight in shining armor? _

His arm dropped to lay in his lap, his expression flat. If he ever did end up finding Goliath, he’d make him pay twice: once for his bullshit notebook, and again for  _ this  _ chaos.

He swiped the phone off of his couch cushion and propped his cigarette between his lips, marveling at how far he’d fallen lately even as he found himself unable to just close the damned feed and move on with his life. Poppy had walked out onto the balcony by now and was fiddling with one of the various plants that perched there, her phone clutched in one hand while she pruned a few yellowed leaves with the other. It was nearly night now, and the quality of the feed had lessened significantly, but he still frowned at the image when he couldn’t help but notice that whatever had taken place had caused her to cry.

He’d seen her cry before, certainly, or at least close to it--the girl teared up over fuckin’  _ everything _ , it seemed--but there was something different about it this time, and not simply because the camera wasn’t built for flattery. She was nothing like the bubbly girl who’d accosted him in the grocery store a few days prior, eyes filled with glittery tears and body trembling with relieved excitement. This version of her looked  _ defeated _ , as if somebody had just drained the life right out of her. He watched a few moments longer as she finally sunk into the lounge chair and clutched the throw pillow to her chest, burying her face into it as she stilled into a slump.

_ Text her. _

Tora rolled his eyes at himself. Ballsy, even for him. The hell would he even say to her? “Sorry, I couldn’t help but notice through the stalker camera my friend set up that you were having a bad night. Can I offer my assistance?” He scoffed and stubbed his cigarette out, cursing under his breath as he burnt his finger in his haste. In his past life, his  _ simple  _ life, he’d have chucked the phone and moved on, content to let her solve her own problems. He’d have gone to the gym, maybe out to the pool hall… Hell, maybe he would have just taken a nap. Easy. Clean. 

He looked back down at the girl still curled around the pillow in her arms and sighed.

It would have been better to ignore her, were it not completely impossible. He dug for his personal phone underneath the cushion and swiped it open, already frustrated with himself before he even began typing anything. Brutality was his bullpen. Violence. Intimidation. Fear. Not  _ feelings _ , and certainly not standing up as the caretaker of said feelings when it involved  _ improving  _ them. Even so, it didn’t sit right with him to simply leave her in such a state, and in the absence of being able to hunt down the gelding fuck that did this to her, he supposed he was in a position where he should probably say something.

He navigated to her text chain and opened the keyboard, further annoyed when the cursor remained still, blinking at him as he struggled with what to say.

It wasn’t like he could tell her he knew what she was going through, lest he reveal the hidden camera, but why else would he be texting her to begin with? He never pretended himself a wordsmith, and for  _ damned  _ sure never bothered to comfort anybody with any sort of docility, so what the fuck was he supposed to do with her? Would she even want to hear from him?

He paused.

... _ Would  _ she? It wasn’t like they’d sustained any lengthy, meaningful conversations. Hell, the longest they had ever spoken to each other in earnest was when he’d been backpedaling to salvage himself after he’d gotten lost in holding her hand. It was all well and good to brush things off under the guise of simply completing their transaction that evening, but now? He sat back with a long sigh. As far as she was concerned, she’d gotten everything she’d wanted: She had her second shot with the Lam guy, she deleted that picture, she held up her end of the bargain with a dinner worthy of any restaurant. Realistically, he had no reason to reach out, nor she to him, now that they stood on even ground.

He tapped at the screen despite himself, wondering when it was that he had completely lost his mind.

Then he deleted it. Typed more. Deleted part of it. Shut the screen off and clenched the phone threateningly in his fist, took a deep breath, reopened the text, edited the passage once more and hit “send” before he could talk himself out of it all over again:

_ hey chickenshit _

He stared at the message for a moment, tempted to cover his face out of sheer disbelief that he could fail so utterly at communicating even an ounce of empathy, but chose instead to pick the other phone up in his free hand and held it side-by-side with his own. If this was going to go down in flames, the least he could do was nut up and ride it out. He watched, acutely aware of the way his heart pounded in his chest, and waited for her reaction. 

The moments dragged out, rudely ignorant of his mounting anxiety, until at long last he watched as Poppy lifted her head from the pillow and stared miserably at the phone that sat face-down on the table next to her. His regret intensified as she rolled her eyes in exasperation and began to cry once more, apparently convinced that whomever had fought with her was now following up on their earlier intrusion. He wondered momentarily if it were possible to un-send a text message, then clenched his jaw as she finally reached for her phone. Tears shined on her cheeks in the light of her screen and he nearly backed out of the feed entirely before she stopped him in his tracks.

Poppy looked down at the device in her hand and  _ smiled _ .

He stared at her.

The grit of the camera feed was just enough to obscure her actions as she opened the text message he’d sent her, shocking him further by laughing as she read it. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her hoodie sleeve and then typed something, returning to her curled position after she’d finished. He glanced over at his own screen in anticipation, his body bowstring-taut, halfway convinced that there was  _ still  _ no possibility that he, of all people, could have caused that kind of reaction. He was nearly finished convincing himself that some other fool must have texted her, that he was an idiot for allowing such sentimentality to cloud his logic and reasoning so thoroughly, when her name lit up on his screen as his phone vibrated in his grasp.

He nearly dropped it.

With one final, skeptical glance at the girl still staring at whatever she’d sent, he swiped the message open:

**_Braver than you are._ **

He snorted. He’d call bullshit, but he was the one sitting here afraid of a text. It may have been a rare night for him, but he wasn’t about to surrender the upper hand  _ that  _ easily. 

_ bold words for someone afraid of stairs. _

The tension had broken now, his relief nearly tangible over her acceptance, though the concept of it distantly irritated him. Never had somebody’s approval meant so much to him, not even Balthuman’s, but here he was fretting over the opinion of some girl who’d crashed into his life a mere week and some change ago. The notion disquieted him deeply, but evidently not enough for him to avoid peering at her face, soaking in the sunshine smile that curved her lips while she laughed at his taunt. He wanted desperately to reach through the phone to touch her, to interlace their fingers again and to smell her hair and to listen to whatever bullshit she wanted to rant about  _ that  _ day, but all he could manage was a soft grin of his own as he watched her type frantically back to him.

**_Bolder words from someone who forgets how tall he is when a pretty girl is around._ **

Tora shook his head, amazed at the audacity of this upstart little firecracker that had nestled herself quite comfortably within his thoughts. He’d chalk her bravery up to the safety of distance, the implied security of hiding behind a cell phone, but he knew full well that she’d be just as brazen if she were inches away from him. The notion thrilled him in a way that violence never had, and if he hadn’t been so focused on replying to her just to see her laugh again, he might have noticed that he was chuckling, himself.

_ whatever. talk to me when you can reach the top cabinets yourself _

He could nearly hear the dramatic gasp of offense, could imagine the deep blush that dusted her nose and cheekbones as he hung on her reaction, relieved to see that the tears had dried now as she stared at her surroundings indignantly. She started typing again and then paused, strangely hesitant, then surprised him by turning the screen off and chewing nervously at her thumbnail instead. Tora frowned. Had he taken it too far? Teased her too much? He patted absently for his cigarettes as his concern prevented him from looking away from her.

Eventually, she texted him back:

**_Hey… if you’re not busy..._ **

His eyes flitted between her and the text, underneath which the indicator bubble verified that she continued to type and delete, unaware of his watchful gaze. The longer she took, the more amused he became, recalling the length of time she’d taken to text him when he’d been stuck watching Quincey puke his guts out in the parking garage. At least some things were consistent. He watched as she finally hit send, then fired off a quick second text right behind it, and then clutched the pillow as if to squeeze the life out of it. He cocked his head.

**_Do you maybe want to grab something to eat?_ **

**_I could kind of use a friend right now._ **

Tora felt his heart thump as he reread the messages several times, somewhat convinced that it was either a trap or a hallucination. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d convinced himself that something was more than it was, having fielded many attempts at manipulation and outright dishonesty from countless clan members and enemies alike over the years. No matter how he looked at it, however, combined with her behavior over the live feed, he couldn’t find any way to interpret it as anything other than what it was, and that was perhaps the most unlikely part of all. He squinted at the phone and shook his head in disbelief.

She was new to the city, he knew, but surely she had better friends than some tattooed asshole who wouldn’t leave her alone? His fingers tapped against his phone case as he contemplated the offer, halfway questioning it while already running through the local menus in his mind. What did she even like to eat? Would it be weird if he suggested picking something up for her, instead? He glanced back down at the camera stream and felt his gut clench as he watched her, apparently convinced by his silence that she’d clearly been mistaken in her offer. He closed the live feed and tapped hastily at his phone, frustrated by his inexplicable doubt.

_ see you in 20. _

She had him changing all sorts of routines in his life these days. Life had been simpler before, yes, but the longer he reflected on the implications, the more he found himself believing that it hadn’t been any  _ better _ . He’d traded his clear-cut boundaries and predictable expectations for this newly muddled, emotional hurricane, and as he yanked a thermal over his head and punctuated it with a few sprays of cologne, he began to recognize that he was just as afraid of  _ losing  _ her as he was insistent upon getting rid of her. To the same end, he supposed, of keeping her safe. 

He patted himself down for his essentials and snagged his phones from the couch, checking one last time to make sure that she’d still be there when he showed up. She’d texted him one last time as he got ready, and it left him feeling, as she always did, just a bit lighter as he walked out the door:

**_Thanks, Tora. Can’t wait to see you._ **


End file.
